Scenic Route

Old friends Mitchell and Carter are on a road trip together. We don't know from where to where they are going, but they are in the middle of the desert (Nevada?). Mitchell is on crutches. Again, we are never really told what happened.

What we do know is that Carter stages a car breakdown because they don't talk anymore like they used to and he manufactures a situation where they have no choice but to talk. And while they're there he goes off on Mitchell for having given up on his dream on becoming a musician and marrying the "rebound-girl" after breaking up with the love of his life.

But first, they kick the shit out of each other. This happens before the credits. Mitchell has a broken nose and a bloody face and Carter does not move after one final blow. This is the intro.

Then we go back to the previously mentioned car trouble and the fight (first verbal) that follow after Carter's go at a life intervention and Mitchell finding out that his friend has simply removed a wire from the car to keep them stranded. He owns up when a passing car offers them a ride into town. Before the helpful man is allowed to drive off, Carter has to start the car to prove to Mitchell that he fixed it.

It is only after the driver left and some more fighting that the car is really broken. More yelling, blaming each other and the fight from the beginning follow. Mitchell comes to and Carter is still not moving. Mitchell mourns over the body of his friend and eventually starts digging a grave in the desert. As he pulls the body towards it, however, it tunes out that Carter is still alive. When he now realizes that he was about to be buried, he loses it and storms off.

The reunite and suffer together through the heat during the day, the cold nights and the lack of water. As a last ditch effort they stumble off in the direction where Mitchell thinks a town may be and eventually come to the remains of what used to be a small group of houses. But at least they find water.

And then suddenly a cell rings and they have reception again (hurray!) and are saved.

Or are they?

6/10

Feast

This was fun!

A group of people are stranded in a bar when they are attacked by monsters. There is no explanation where those creatures came from and how they ended up in the middle of nowhere. The collection of bar maids, travelers and local weirdos have to work together to survive (not many do).

At first, we are introduced to the characters in the film through humorous inserts. Nobody has a name, they are referred to as "Hero" or "Bozo" or "Grandma" etc. and the entire spectrum of humanity is pretty much covered. There is blood and puke and a popped-out eye.

There is also Henry Rollins in pink ladies' sweats (the monsters will eventually use him as a battering ram to break their way into the bar).

I hear there is a part II. (Yes!)

7/10

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

Every boy in the high school wants to get into Mandy Lane's pants. She's allegedly still a virgin and got hot over the summer (their words, not mine).

A group of her class mates invite her out to Red's (the stoner) parent's farm, along with two cheerleaders (Chloe and Marlin) and two jocks (Bird and Luke). The only other person around is the farm hand Garth. During a night of drugs and alcohol, Mandy's former best friend Emmett - shunned because he made a boy jump off the roof towards a swimming pool (and, unfortunately, not quite making it) - starts killing them off one by one.

The first one to get it is Marlin, gravely wounded but not quite dead when Luke, heavily intoxicated, finds her by the lake. Luke is the first one to go, death by gun. Passed out Marlin gets the butt of the gun in the face (repeatedly), which leads to

DEAD CHEERLEADER ALERT!!!

The four others are at this point unaware of their friends being recently deceased. Bird then runs into Emmett and starts hitting him, before Emmett produces a hunting knife...

In the morning, Grant and Mandy have a heart to heart and we learn that nice, goody two-shoes Mandy is an orphan and that is why she is 'different' from her group of idiot friends. Awww! Then Grant gets lured away by a noise coming from upstairs. Mandy, asleep with her head on the table gets stroked by Emmett's bloody hand, so when Grant returns and sees the blood on her hair and the fridge decides that 'we need to get out of here'. As soon as the door opens, Grant gets shot in the shoulder.

Red and Chloe flee out the back door and find Luke and Marlin's bodies in a field. This leads to some making out (obviously) during which Red gets shot in the back. Chloe runs off into the fields, where she comes upon Bird's body before being chased by a car by Emmett and running....straight into the hunting knife, now held by Mandy herself (who was in on it all along). And again:

DEAD CHEERLEADER ALERT!!!

It was all really a suicide pact. But Mandy has one more surprise in store and planned to get rid of Emmett instead of dying with him. The bitch!

2/10

The Frozen

A young couple, Mike and Emma, goes camping in the snow (ya know, like you do) in a rather remote area. They are all by themselves (or are they?) without cell phone reception (of course). After an accident with the snow mobile, they are somewhat stuck and frequently get lost when trying to hike back to their truck, which they left parked some 10 miles away.

Then weird stuff starts happening.

They see (or imagine) a guy with a hunting rifle watching and/or hunting them. One night Mike goes to investigate strange noises (ya know, like you do) they believe to come from the hunter taunting them. He never returns.

The rest of the film, Emma stumbles through the wilderness trying to find her way back to civilization, all the while running from a hunter.

She has a few weird nightmares (visions?) along the way and finally ends up in a small town, where she bursts into a diner begging for help. When no-one reacts and she realizes that one of the patrons is actually the guy she tries to escape from, he explains to her that she died in the snow mobile accident, as did Mike, who didn't give him such a hard time with constantly running once he explained the facts to him. Then Emma takes the hand of the hunter (death? an angel? some spiritual guide?) and walks off into eternal peace.

Or something.

4/10